Among related patents include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,920,838 of Mostow and 6,206,700 of Brown.
The Brown '700 patent is important because it has a comprehensive set of flow charts which describe its reading system, including actual views of computer screens, where examples such as a picture of an elephant are accompanied by a phrase such as “Watch the elephant”. The Brown '700 patent does not describe a system of pairing words by elimination of paired covered blocks until a pair of identical words is revealed, as in the television game of “CONCENTRATION”.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,614 of Buda discloses a game of word forming by elimination, although not by eliminating successive pairs of block covers as in the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 4,435,902 of Hengel discloses a word game using images on physical cards. U.S. Pat. No. 4,661,074 of Walker discloses a card game and U.S. Pat. No. 5,213,333 of Petrovich discloses a word association game with lists of words.
While these above noted patents do not clearly disclose the present invention of pairing words by elimination of paired covered blocks until a pair of identical words is revealed, as in the television game of “CONCENTRATION”, but non-patented websites do show the use of a CONCENTRATION type of game.
For example, there are non-patented educational games which explicitly describe a system of pairing words by elimination of paired covered blocks until a pair of identical words is revealed, as in the television game of “CONCENTRATION.” For example, in one if one go to the website playandlearn.org one will find a CONCENTRATION type game which uses pairs of tile cards on a computer screen which are flipped until the student obtains a match, as in the present Memory Cards game. Each match reveals a portion of the screen which ultimately shows a full picture, instead of the present blank grid after all the pairs of words have been matched. Another similar CONCENTRATION type game is found at sciencenorth.on.ca/learn/coolschience/coolwebstuff/concentration in which pairs of blocks are uncovered by successfully matching the image pairs underneath the covered blocks to reveal words in a science learning game.
Moreover, in a third CONCENTRATION type game found on the Internet is found at chandra.harvard.edu/edu/games/concentration in astronomy, wherein pairs of covered blocks are sequentially flipped to reveal paired words.
However, neither the matching memory games discussed above nor elimination games describe the present multimedia learning system which utilizes the verbal input from the user to perform diagnostics and evaluate their proficiency along with interactive directed coaching based on the analysis of the user's input, which exponentially enhances the efficiency and comprehensiveness of the instruction.